Today I joined a community where senior developers discuss and coach each other into defining their career goals. Think of sharing experiences, help and motivate each other to reach their goals, and hold each other accountable.
When joining the community, one is asked to introduce themselves, tell what you've done, where you are now, and what your ambitions are.
I decided to write my introduction here, as a blog post, and then copy-paste it to the community as well. Having it on my own website as well is pretty nice.
Hi, I am Bouwe, 45 yo, from The Netherlands, where I live with my partner and two daughters. After finishing CS studies in 1999, fascinated by the web, I started working for a consultancy firm building custom made content management systems using HTML, CSS, and Active Server Pages.
After that, I worked 15 years as a .NET C# software engineer, mainly building backends. Last year I joined WebinarGeek, where I am a frontend developer building an interactive video streaming app with React.
I consider myself being a communicative developer, I really enjoy working and interacting with people, and learning from each other. Learning is a keyword in my career. My fascination for learning new tech and improving my skills never seems to stop.
But only after my 40s I accepted from myself that I am not shy and insecure, and am just good enough to share the things I know and learn. So only since recent years I do active content creation. In fact, I now even have the courage to share things I am still learning, because by sharing what you are currently learning, you learn faster and better. No need to wait until you are an expert.
In 2019 I started learning React in my free time, organized workshops so I could teach it to other people, and now work with React fulltime. I also do blogging, live coding streams, and recently started a webcast called Curious Coders, together with a fellow curious coder.
My content creation is always about things I feel I do not fully understand yet, but after sharing (investigating) it, I do. That is why I do content creation mainly for myself, because I am sure I benefit from it. But of course I hope others do too.
For this year I plan on speaking at a meetup or even a conference for the first time. Taking a leap of faith for content creation really gives me a kick, and I want to see how far I can go with this.
So my career at the moment, and also in the near future, will be about building cool applications with nice people and tech, and on the side do content creation, because it makes me feel good. And sometimes I think that's just who I am.
On the other hand, if you would have told me 5 years ago I would be doing this now, I would not have believed you. So that is why I think it's good and interesting to think about a next step, and if that would be something else than (or not only) developing and content creation.
On one hand I feel I am not suitable for (and excited enough about) softer roles such as PO, CTO, or whatever, but on the other hand, why not, if you see where I am coming from and where I am now. So yeah, let's find out!
P.S. I saw other people mention their preferred tech stack. Mine currently is JS/TS, React, XState, Remix, but also Elm.
That's it! Perhaps a bit long, but I liked writing this and reflecting on myself. Maybe I should do more blogging about career things, pretty interesting, if only for myself... 😏